Rampage movie review: Dwayne Johnson fails to save this monster film

Rampage review: We have seen experiments go more spectacularly wrong before. Rampage tries to go one step further by starting with monsters in space and ending with monsters on the ground. But the film then does little with any of its three.

One can be a former US Special Armed Forces soldier, an ex-member of a worldwide anti-poaching force, a primate specialist, a gorilla whisperer, and be able to detect abnormalities in neuron synapses from one glance at a tablet. All it requires is one to be Dwayne Johnson.

His Davis, the one of the powers above, could be a super-product of some genetic re-engineering himself. But no, he isn’t the specimen under the microscope here. That would be a wolf, a gorilla and a crocodile. They become super-animals, with improved agility, strength and regeneration powers, and grow to be multiple times their size, after they inhale a green gas emitting from a canister, that has fallen off space, out of an escape shuttle that exploded, while a scared astronaut was trying to escape, another lab-raised monster.

We have seen experiments go more spectacularly wrong before. Rampage tries to go one step further by starting with monsters in space and ending with monsters on the ground. But the film then does little with any of its three — but for getting one impressive leap out of the super-wolf, a few heartbeats out of the super-gorilla, and almost nothing out of the super-crocodile.

Worse, the three creatures seem to be haunting no more than Davis, plus a good-hearted geneticist who mistakenly worked on the genetic editing that brought these creatures to life, Caldwell (Harris), and a special agent (Morgan, trying hard to be Robert Downey Jr) who says he is from ‘OGA (Other Government Agency)’, summoned to handle the crisis.

When the gorilla actually goes on a rampage, the danger is never up close and personal, and a few dented cars and one unlucky grizzly bear are about the extent of his victims.

Latest Videos

Akerman is the owner of the company that has got this circus going, by sending that shuttle into space, and then conducting those genetic editing experiments it calls ‘Project Rampage’. She may have millions, but she thinks all this will earn her some more.

Advertising

Rampage is loosely based on a video game. Which part seemed real to you?